So Many Books... - Post a comment

05:30 pm - Uh oh, it's the "Ooh the drama!" userpic

Happily not a tragedy, though it came pretty close.

Last night, having considered the idea of LJing Jackson Pearce's As You Wish, read on a fairly epic journey to IKEA with younger daughter (very good it was too!) (the book, not the journey), but not having enough energy, I was watching an episode of Bones with Becca when the phone rang at 9:30. It was my elderly next-door neighbour, who often rings if she can't open something or the like, but this time she was frantic and told me someone had come into her house and had run upstairs and she couldn't find her keys to get out. Number one nightmare scenario! I immediately rang the guards and gave my mobile to Becca to ring a neighbour whose number was on the mobile, but he wasn't in. As soon as the emergency line had got all the details I went out and knocked on other neighbour's door, but he wasn't in either, so I went to the house across the road - all in search of one of the guys to come with me into the house (I have a key, but was too chicken to go in by myself). In the few minutes it took to get him, and meet yet another neighbour who'd been rung after me, the guards arrived and we got her to take the chain off the door so we could get in.

Apparently she'd either left the keys in the door outside or not pushed the door quite over, and this fellow had come in to her living room, where she was sitting eating in front of the TV, grabbed her bag and gone out the back, rather than upstairs. When we got in she was still gasping and panicked, unsurprisingly, and I was really worried she'd have a heart attack on the spot. At first I think the guards thought she might have had a nightmare, but when they found the back door locked from the outside, realised it had happened exactly as she said.

Bottom line was she wasn't hurt, *didn't* have a heart attack from the shock, and only lost a very small bit of cash (and a card, but I rang and that was canceled immediately), but none of those was the likeliest outcome at all. Another guard was sent around this morning (forensic expert! Just looking for anywhere there might be a fingerprint or two really, but it's more fun to call him a forensic expert) and he said there's a fair amount of this kind of thing going on, with people taking the train out from town and looking only for drug money. Still and all if her bag hadn't been on the sofa right by the door, she might easily have been knocked down or beaten to tell where cash or valuables were, which doesn't bear thinking of.

Only funny part was after I got back home, at almost 11 the girls said - despite the two barkiest dogs in the world, an inaccessible back door and it being obvious nobody had come in the front door - that they'd gone around the house with the dogs and a crutch (left over from one of Becca's numerous ankle-sprainings) to check the bedrooms. And then Becca solemnly announced "I stand up in an emergency", with finger pointing ceiling-ward. Younger Daughter and I looked at her in puzzlement and Y.D. asked if she meant she rose to the occasion, and she repeated that she stood up. Several times, always with the finger gesture. It was a very drunken pronouncement for someone who was totally sober, and today, she still had no idea what she'd been trying to say.

There wasn't much sleep had on our road last night, again unsurprisingly. But I phoned the locksmith as soon as the guard - forensic expert - had gone, and he was out in less than half an hour and neighbour was feeling much calmer after new locks were in. As soon as I put the new keys on her key-chain she went to put them in a (very crowded) drawer, which freaked me the hell out. I asked her wouldn't she leave them in the door (on the inside, in the Chubb lock, obviously) in case she needed to get out in a hurry and couldn't find them in the drawer, as had happened last night. It had never occurred to her - I suppose we all have our own little collection of worries, but having a door dead-bolted and not being able to find the keys is definitely one of mine!

And now to put together IKEA furniture with Y.D...